XML Sitemap: Find Broken Links and Fix Using a Link Checker Tool

XML Sitemap: Find Broken Links and Fix Using a Link Checker Tool

What do you imagine visitors to your website do when your internal or external HTML hyperlinks don’t work? What do you do? I usually abandon the website, never to return. Well, that’s precisely what most visitors do. They look for the information elsewhere, somewhere more reliable!

• Hyperlink management using a link checker tool is an extremely important and absolutely essential element in maintaining your website. Broken links can stop internet search engine robots dead in their tracks, essentially stopping them from indexing your website. It’s essential you use a website link checker tool, sometimes called a dead link checker tool, regularly.

Acquiring too many broken links brings with it so many adverse reactions that it could leave your online business reeling from its effects. A predicament which is very hard to correct. Of the many bad habits or mistakes a website may commit, possessing broken links is amongst the most severe.

• Search engine bots are stopped dead by broken links because they think it is the end of the line. Don’t get caught out, use a broken links checker tool, they are usually free (see below).

Amongst the greatest frustrations with broken links, from an authors perspective, is the fact that not one person is reading that fantastic article you spent countless hours crafting. You get the impression no-one is interested when in reality they would love to read the article, they simply cannot reach it as a result of a coding blunder. So before finalising any html page, check broken links.

Yet another downside of broken links is the damage to your reputation. Your website will be considered unprofessional at best and may even be considered a ‘shady’ operation. These negative hits on your reputation can have extremely damaging effects on business. Regrettably, it’s nearly impossible to count the site visitors who will never browse the site again due to this issue.

Clean House

Webmasters and website owners should take it upon themselves to “clean house” diligently and regularly. All hyperlinks should be actively checked and broken links rectified. Make it part of your regular housekeeping.

Unfortunately, many webmasters and website owners complain about the task of looking for broken links, as do I. It takes a lot of time to check each and every hyperlink to see if it is working or not and with even a relatively small website having potentially many thousands of hyperlinks, it can be a major undertaking. With the many responsibilities that webmasters and website owners have to juggle, it is quite understandable that they do not prioritize checking broken links.

Removing Broken Links

• Helps keep visitors on your site.
• Helps keep search engine spiders on your site.
• Conforms to Google’s technical guidelines “Check for broken links”.

Broken Link Finder: Solutions

Thankfully, one can find plugins and organizations that also understand that investigating broken links is definitely a mind-numbing task and have developed various strategies to make this task easier to perform and consume a fraction of the time. The following are my favourite broken link finder tools or web link validator tools:

 

Broken Link Checker

 

If you’re a WordPress user take a look at the many WordPress plugins available. Personally I use Broken Link Checker. This plugin will check your posts, comments and other content for broken links and missing images, and notify you if any are found. It’s not perfect, but it does the job.

 

XML Sitemaps

 

If you’re not using WordPress or simply want something a little more powerful, try the free link checker tool on XML Sitemaps. XML Sitemaps has programmed a standalone script that not only creates great xml sitemap but also looks for broken links in your website.

They also have a few small but useful SEO tools for those webmasters interested in optimizing their websites for search engines. Tools such as: Validate XML Sitemap (with broken link check tool), search engine robot simulator, HTTP headers viewer, submit to search engines tool, competitor analysis tool, keyword density calculator tool and check SERP position tool.

 

W3c Link Checker

 

Another very useful link checker tool is the w3c link checker. This link checker tool looks for issues in links, anchors and referenced objects in a web page, CSS style sheet, or recursively on a whole web site. Whilst this is a very useful tool, I find it difficult to use, it has obviously been written for programmers and not the everyday user.

XML Sitemap: Find Broken Links and Fix Using a Link Checker Tool Conclusion

Doing a website health check every month can prevent the quality of your website dropping. Don’t forget to do it.

The automation of the task of checking broken links is a great time saver for webmasters and website owners and as I said earlier, hyperlink management is an extremely important as well as a really essential element of maintaining your website.

• For those who change their pages html codes by hand, taking human error into account, these tools are invaluable.
• Don’t let broken links ruin your visitors expectations or prevent the internet search engine robots from indexing your website. Do a website health check regularly.

Finally, if you have any thoughts or suggestions relating to: find broken links and fix using a link checker tool, don’t forget to let me have them in the comment box below. Thanks for dropping by.